That’s not all. This increase had nothing to do with whether the organization fixed the complaint. The increase was directly related to giving their donor a voice. Let them share what they like and don’t like. However, if it is a valid complaint, fix it.

This process doesn’t have to be complicated. Start with including a survey in your thank you letters. Bottom-line: ask you donors what they think.

In a few days it will be Thanksgiving; a holiday that started in 1621 when a group of people from different backgrounds gave thanks for what God had given them.

200 years later President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day to be celebrated the last Thursday of November. In Lincoln’s words, it was to be “a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.”

Now Thanksgiving is consumed with eating, football, preparing to shop, traveling, etc. We have let the Thanksgiving and Praise slip.

This Thanksgiving, take a moment to give thanks and praise for all the things you’ve been given. It’s a good exercise for all of us and not just on Thanksgiving.

Breaking Bad averaged 6 million tweets per episode. That means Breaking Bad viewers were watching the show and at least one other screen at the same time. Why is this important to marketers and fundraisers?

Customers and donors are becoming more like those viewers. They have new expectations on how their informational and social needs should be met. They want to engage in real time using multiple media devices simultaneously.

How will your organization address their needs? Maybe your direct mail has a picture that when scanned links to a video. Be sure mobile plays a big part.

What’s important… That’s a great start to a question, but how you end the sentence is what matters most to your success. So, at your organization is it “to me?” or “to my donors?”

Penelope Burk’s research says most donors don’t care about seeing their names listed in your newsletters. What they do care about is whether their name is spelled correctly.

After the extra time of entering all those names in your newsletter and the extra cost of paper to print the names, what’s the benefit to you? No calls from donors whose names are misspelled.

I’m not saying you need to remove donor names from your next newsletter. There is only one person who can answer that question…your donor.

Start asking the question, “What’s important to my donors?” You will find some things that have become important to you but not your donors, and find other things that are very important to your donors.